


Meet Me on Soft Shores

by iwtv



Category: Black Sails
Genre: 18th century ear piercing, Drinking, Ear Piercing, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension, and silver is turned on by it, flint is sweet, pre-season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 00:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9466709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwtv/pseuds/iwtv
Summary: "Meet me here, though the shore is soft/ and your feet are dry/ and you'll never need to fear the dark waters."Silver has Flint pierce his ears.





	

They clattered lightly on top of the worn desk, catching the light and glinting as Flint looked at them. They were two silver hoop earrings. Flint turned a pair of questioning green eyes to the man who had dropped them there.

“I’ve decided to add a bit of flair to my appearance,” Silver said by way of an answer and explanation.

Flint leaned back in his chair and raised a hand to his mouth to hide his smile. Silver saw it anyway. He quirked an eyebrow and smiled in return as he hobbled to the second chair that had been shoved next to the cannon carriage.

“Oh come on, is it really that surprising?” he asked, taking a seat and stretching out the boot leg. “It’s not exactly an unusual request considering we *are* pirates. Besides, with these last few days basically a hiatus from planning or fighting…I’m bored,” he added with a shrug.

Flint leaned forward and scooped up the earrings.

“And you want me to pierce you?”

Silver was already pulling his hair back into a ponytail.

“Right now?” Flint asked dubiously.

Silver looked around unnecessarily. “Well you don’t seem otherwise engaged.We’ve been building up defenses and stockpiling goods for the last week, with nothing to do during downtime as I said, so why not?”

He gave Flint a grin that was just south of cocky. Flint frowned but he couldn’t keep it in place.

“Very well,”he muttered, rising from his chair and bending down to retrieve a decanter. From behind his belt Silver pulled out other necessities: a small piece of clean cloth and a container the size of a pillbox.

“Howell gave me this,” he said of the box. “Some kind of ointment that supposed to numb my earlobe.”

Flint snorted.

“He tells everyone that’s what it does.”

Silver raised an eyebrow.

“It doesn’t work?”

Flint shook his head as he brought the decanter over.

“Not as well as he likes to claim it does, but then Howell does not have any piercings to speak of.”

Silver made a ‘tuh’ sound. “Fantastic. You’re going to let me drink some of the disinfectant then,” he said, nodding at the bottle in Flint’s hand.

Flint handed him the bottle. Silver took out the cork and took a long drink, then stopped abruptly and coughed the rest down, grimacing.

“Jesus, is that gin?”

Flint’s lips twitched at his pained expression.

“We ran out of rum yesterday. The crew doesn’t know it yet.”

Silver grimanced again and straightened in the chair.

“Let’s just get on with it. And use the ointment anyway.”

Flint looked down at the cloth and ointment in one hand and the earrings in his other. He licked his lips slowly and regarded Silver passively.

“First tell me the real reason you want this.”

Silver let out a huff, but when his blue eyes met his captain’s green ones they grew resigned.

“I told you once the men need to know they’re in good standing with me,” he replied. “Part of that means I need to maintain my own ability to be liked by them. This means being one of them. And last night during supper a group of us were talking, just chatter and jests to start with. Somehow the conversation got around to the idea that I should get my ears pierced. Everyone seemed to agree, and though they were half joking, I sensed they were half serious as well.”

He took another drink of the gin, much more measured this time. He awaited Flint’s response but there was none.

Without replying, Flint took the bottle from him and wetted the cloth with it and wiped the backs of the earrings. He instructed Silver to dab the ointment on his earlobes. Silver eyed him another moment, ungodly curious as to what he was thinking. The words jumbled together in his mouth and he halted them all on his tongue.

“Should I lean back?” he asked instead.

“No, you’re fine like that.”

Silver nodded. Flint placed everything on the small window ledge save for one earring. He crossed the room and brought back an empty crate to sit on, placing it close to Silver’s chair. He reached up and pushed Silver’s ponytail off to the side. Very gently. Silver inhaled sharply and Flint paused.

“Sorry,” Silver said. He felt heat rush to his cheeks and wasn’t entirely sure why. He felt the tickle of Flint’s breath on the side of his neck. Then he felt Flint pause again.

“How far would you go for them? For this crew?” he asked.

Silver blinked and drew back to look at him. He knew that low tone in Flint’s voice, saw the question in his eyes. The words were no longer demanding or bent on manipulation as they once might have been. Rather, they were merely honest. Flint didn’t move away, his green eyes bright and penetrating and his rust- orange beard close enough that Silver could make out discolored hairs here and there.

“I’m not entirely certain,” he replied at length. “But I’m willing to do whatever’s necessary to keep us strong, if that’s what you’re asking.”

He held Flint’s gaze longer than he should have, but then again Flint did the same. Flint’s eyes turned cloudy, his brow knotting. It was a look of concern. Silver let his eyes drop down his captain’s face before dragging them away. In the same instant Flint sighed and raised the earring to his ear.

“This may or may not be very painful. It depends on the person.”

“Well all things considered, I doubt I’ll find it very painful at all.”

He grinned at the morbid joke referring to his missing leg. He couldn’t see Flint’s expression as he faced forward, though something told him Flint was wearing that concerned look again.

Without further ado Flint pushed the sharp back of the earring into the soft flesh of Silver’s earlobe. Hard. Just as the pain grew hot and uncomfortable it crested, and he yelped as it sliced through his skin. His hands curled tightly around the arms of the chair.

“Got it,” Flint said quickly.

The pain seemed to intensify but was bearable.

“That wasn’t so bad,” he said with a little laugh. Nodding, Flint moved to his other side. Silver took another drink from the decanter. The gin was awful but it was starting to work on him; a warmth spreading from his gut straight to his head. He sighed and tried to relax more as Flint once again pushed aside his hair. This time Silver knew he was not imagining things; there* was* a gentleness to the gesture that was entirely unnecessary…but not unwelcomed.

Flint wasted no time and forced the second earring through. It took perhaps a few seconds longer than the first time—he heard a soft grunt from Flint—and again Silver felt the pain crest quickly; a white-hot flash and then it was over. His eyes teared up this time. It was a mere ghost of the pain his leg had once felt, but still it was the first time he had experienced any real pain since that dreadful moment. The memory of that moment was a mixture of blurry and vague remembrances and searing, vivid pain.

“Here,” Flint was saying, tearing the alcohol-soaked cloth in two and handing one piece to Silver. “You’re bleeding.”

Was he? Well he must have been, after that. He was light headed, buzzed from the alcohol. He pulled the cloth away from his ear to find it soaked with crimson. Flint told him they would bleed profusely for several minutes and he’d need to keep the pressure on. Flint caught him off guard yet again when he pressed the second half of cloth against his other ear and held it there, still so very close. Silver’s eyes wondered down to where he caught the rise and fall of Flint’s chest under his shirt. There was the usual triangle of pale skin exposed there, where Silver could see the curve of Flint’s chest muscles. He needed another drink.

“Go easy on that,” said Flint. “You won’t impress anyone if you’re pissed when you go topside.”

Silver took a small drag anyway then sat the bottle down. He licked his lips and dared to look into Flint’s face. Flint was focused on his ear, pulling away the cloth just barely to see and replacing it.

“Of course you’re a bleeder,” he said. He gave Silver a wry smile, which Silver had another word for and that was charming. Oh yes, the alcohol was definitely working on him. So he told himself.

They chatted about the next council meeting and a need to go hunting again—certainly for more rum— and This and That. When it seemed the bleeding had slowed enough Flint passed the cloth over to him and climbed to his feet.

“Well I think that about does it’” he said. “You’ll need to keep pressure on them until the bleeding stops altogether. And you won’t want to take them out for any length of time, otherwise you’ll risk the piercings healing back over. You’ll probably be out of commission for the next few hours.”

Dr. Howell had told him all of this of course, and a few of the men had even chimed in the same advice. Surely Flint knew that. Still, he was glad to hear it from his lips all the same.

Silver climbed to his feet, temporarily tucking the cloth inside his coat. He pulled out his ponytail and let his hair down. It covered his ears, but he didn’t really need everyone oogling at his bloody ears just yet. He would go to his bunk until the bleeding stopped.

And yet he hesitated, not really wanting to go to the cabin door.

Flint sat the decanter down on top of his desk, pushing some papers out of the way.

“I suppose you’ll want a tattoo next,” he mused with a glance up at him. “What will it be? An anchor? Perhaps with a kraken’s tentacles wrapped around it?”

The casual humor helped him ground himself again and to clear his head. He responded with his usual wit as he walked to the door.

“If I ever get a tattoo James, you should know it would be of a shark.”

John looked up to see James rewarded him with a toothy grin, green eyes alive.

He opened the door and left, smirking to himself.

***

...Meet me here, though the shore is soft  
and your feet are dry  
and you'll never need to fear the dark waters.  
Meet me here, here in the depths  
of all this,  
for I have been waiting,  
legs churning the ink  
of these lonely waters  
to keep my mouth high enough  
for you to hear your name  
shouted into the sea  
between us...

~Tyler Knott Gregson


End file.
